Making advertorials work online

The Internet may after all be the first encounter a third party may have with your client. There's a lot to be said about first impressions.

From corporate websites to advertising and editorial to blogs, there are numerous ways you can ensure your clients are well represented on the Internet. Another way is through advertorials, vastly underutilised on the Net.

Just to make certain that we're on the same page here, an advertorial is in essence an advertisement that's designed to look and feel like editorial by providing relevant information about the product, service or company. Editorial suggests that your product, service or company has been endorsed by the journalist. It is no surprise then that the perceived value of editorial as opposed to paid advertising space is higher due to the credibility it affords.

Pride of place

An appealing advertorial can convey the marketing message in a more controlled manner. In my opinion, well-executed advertorials deserve their pride of place on the media relations shelf right next to the media release.

They might be similar in concept but online advertorials are quite unlike their glossy cousins. Although the option to place text with an image does exist, the web environment naturally promotes two-way communication. Done properly, online advertorials should be used to encourage interactivity with the brand through the various tools the Internet affords such as feedback and comment areas, voting polls, streaming audio and video clips, online games and ‘refer-a-friend' type functionality, among many others.

Another critical distinction between online and print is the link to search engine optimisation (SEO) and marketing. Search engines such as Google will allocate better ranking to websites that have quality links to sites that it considers to be important or authoritative. For example, if your advertorial appears on a site such as News24.com, which is deemed by Google as a very important South African website and you carry a link in the advertorial to your client's website, it will boost your client's overall ranking according to Google. This is an often unknown benefit of web PR tactics.

Incentivise participation

Advertorials are also incredibly quick to place online with far reduced lead times. If immediacy is a concern, consider the online advertorial route on relevant websites. I generally advise clients to try and incentivise participation by potentially rewarding surfers for reading an advertorial via a competition or giveaway mechanic too.

Remember to let the online partner work for their money. By all means, make suggestions and manage the process but let the website revert with recommendations. In this way, a campaign will ensue that matches the editorial integrity of the site more closely.

Also, never let budget be a limiting factor. Enquire about minimum investment but be certain to request three options, those being basic, intermediate and advanced options, to ascertain what the site's creative capabilities are.

Always remember that the Internet also makes measurability a cinch. Most large websites will provide you with access to a real-time statistics tracking tool which monitors the number of unique users visiting your advertorial, geographic location and even time spent interacting with the advertorial. It's incredibly easy therefore to ascertain whether a campaign is achieving the desired results this way. And, thanks to the immediacy of the web, campaign agility is guaranteed.

Summary of tips:

• Make sure the release contains clear links to the client's website within the copy
  
• Make certain that advertorial copy is written for web consumption.
  
• Include interactive mechanisms wherever possible.
  
• Incentivise participation.
  
• Obtain scaleable options from the chosen online partner.
  
• Enquire about statistics tracking.
  
• Monitor activity and have a back-up plan in place to refresh the advertorial if needed.